Information processing system, information processing method and storage medium

ABSTRACT

Setting or verification of a monitoring rule in response to a monitoring target environment is supported. An information processing system includes a situation information receiving unit that receives an input of situation information indicating a situation in a monitoring target environment. The information processing system further includes a normal situation storage unit. The normal situation storage unit stores environment information indicating the monitoring target environment in association with a set of situation information indicating a situation that is not abnormal in the monitoring target environment. The information processing system further includes a retrieval unit. The retrieval unit refers to the normal situation storage unit upon receiving the input of the situation information indicating the information in the monitoring target environment. The retrieval unit then retrieves the environment information associated with the set of the situation information that does not include the input situation information.

The present application is a Continuation Application of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/782,428 filed on Oct. 5, 2015 which is aNational Stage Entry of international application PCT/JP2014/002131,filed on Apr. 15, 2014, which claims the benefit of priority fromJapanese Patent Application 2013-090536 filed on Apr. 23, 2013, thedisclosures of all of which are incorporated herein, in their entirety,by this reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to an information processing system andthe like.

BACKGROUND ART

Monitoring system is a system intended to improve security at a station,an airport, or the like. The monitoring system is configured to includea sensor such as a camera and a microphone. The monitoring systemmonitors occurrence of an abnormal condition by using a sensor outputand a monitoring rule. The monitoring rule is a conditional expressionrepresenting what value of the sensor output causes a determination ofoccurrence of an abnormal condition.

For example, the monitoring rule is a conditional expression such as “ifa camera takes an image of a person putting down luggage, nobody comesclose to the luggage for a predetermined time, then issue a warning”.When the conditional clause of this monitoring rule is satisfied, it canbe interpreted that an abnormal condition of “luggage abandonment” isoccurring, for example.

PTL 1 discloses a monitoring system that monitors occurrence of anabnormal condition by using a sensor output and a monitoring rule. PTL 1discloses that occurrence of an abnormal condition is detected at aplurality of different places. PTL 1 discloses that monitoring rules tobe set are different between a case of monitoring a store which managesmerchandise by a Point Of Sale system (POS) and a case of monitoring astore which manages merchandise by a Radio Frequency IDentification(RFID) tag.

PTL 2 discloses a technique of automatically generating a monitoringrule based on a database in which data concerning abnormal events areregistered and a database in which data concerning normal events areregistered.

CITATION LIST Patent Literature

[PTL 1] Japanese Translation of PCT International ApplicationPublication No. 2009-539182

[PTL 2] Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2013-003929

SUMMARY OF INVENTION Technical Problem

PTL 1 discloses that different monitoring rules are set in response to aplace to be monitored (hereafter, referred to as “monitoring targetplace”). According to the technique disclosed in PTL 1, without specialknowledge on the monitoring target place, an operator of the monitoringsystem is unable to set an appropriate monitoring rule. According to thetechnique disclosed in PTL 2, a monitoring rule in response to anenvironment to be monitored (hereafter, referred to as “monitoringtarget environment”) cannot be generated.

One of the objectives of the present invention is to support setting orverification of a monitoring rule in response to a monitoring targetenvironment.

Solution to Problem

A first aspect of the present invention is an information processingsystem including: a situation information receiving unit which receivesan input of situation information indicating a situation in a monitoringtarget environment; a normal situation storage unit which storesenvironment information indicating the monitoring target environment inassociation with a set of situation information indicating a situationthat is not abnormal in the monitoring target environment; and aretrieval unit which, in response to receiving the input of thesituation information indicating the information in the monitoringtarget environment, refers to the normal situation storage unit andretrieves the environment information associated with the set of thesituation information that does not include the input situationinformation.

A second aspect of the present invention is an information processingmethod which is: performed by a computer that can access a normalsituation storage unit which stores environment information indicating amonitoring target environment in association with a set of situationinformation indicating a situation that is not abnormal in themonitoring target information, the set of the situation informationbeing selected out of pieces of situation information indicating asituation in the monitoring target environment. The method includes:receiving an input of the situation information indicating a situationin the monitoring target information; and in response to receiving theinput of the situation information, referring to the normal situationstorage unit and retrieving environment information associated with aset of the situation information that does not include the inputsituation information.

A third aspect of the present invention is a program that causes acomputer that can access a normal situation storage unit which storesenvironment information indicating a monitoring target environment inassociation with a set of situation information indicating a situationthat is not abnormal in the monitoring target information, the set ofthe situation information being selected out of pieces of situationinformation indicating a situation in the monitoring target environment,to execute: a process of receiving an input of the situation informationindicating a situation in the monitoring target information; and aprocess of, in response to receiving the input of the situationinformation, referring to the normal situation storage unit andretrieving environment information associated with a set of thesituation information that does not include the input situationinformation.

Further, the objective of the present invention is achieved by acomputer readable storage medium in which the program described above isstored.

Advantageous Effects of Invention

The present invention can support setting or verification of amonitoring rule in response to a monitoring target environment.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an informationprocessing system 1000 according to a first exemplary embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 2 is an example of information stored by a normal situation storageunit 210 according to the first exemplary embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a hardware configurationthat can realize the information processing system 1000 of the presentinvention;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the informationprocessing system 1000 according to the first exemplary embodiment ofthe present invention;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an informationprocessing system 1000 according to a second exemplary embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the informationprocessing system 1000 according to the second exemplary embodiment ofthe present invention;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an informationprocessing system 1000 according to a third exemplary embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the informationprocessing system 1000 according to the third exemplary embodiment ofthe present invention;

FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an informationprocessing system 1000 according to a fourth exemplary embodiment of thepresent invention; and

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the informationprocessing system 1000 according to the fourth exemplary embodiment ofthe present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

In order to facilitate the understanding of the invention, the problemto be solved by the present invention will be described in details.

Monitoring systems can monitor various environments. For example,monitoring systems can monitor various places such as “stadium”,“airport”, or “kitchen”. When monitoring a stadium, a monitoring systemcan monitor various events such as “soccer game” or “rock live concert”.When monitoring the stadium where a soccer game is held, for example,the monitoring system can perform monitoring in various time slots suchas “morning”, “before the game”, “during the game”, “after the game”, or“night”.

In the followings, “place”, “event”, “time slot”, and the like arecollectively described as “environment to be monitored” or “monitoringtarget environment”. Further, information indicating the monitoringtarget environment is described as “environment information”.

In order for the monitoring system to perform appropriate monitoring, anoperator of the monitoring system is required to set a monitoring rulein response to a monitoring target environment. When the monitoringtarget environment is a piano concert, for example, it is appropriate toset a monitoring rule such as “if a person screams loudly, then issue analarm”. The situation where a person screams loudly at a piano concertis an abnormal situation. When a conditional expression of thismonitoring rule is satisfied at a piano concert, it can be interpretedthat some abnormal condition is occurring. However, when the monitoringtarget environment is a rock live concert, it is not appropriate to setthe monitoring rule as described above. A situation where a personscreams loudly at the rock live concert is not at all the abnormalsituation. However, in the monitoring system in which this monitoringrule is set, an alarm is issued for such a usual situation that a personscreams loudly.

In order to set an appropriate monitoring rule in response to amonitoring target environment, the operator of the monitoring system isrequired to have special knowledge of the monitoring target environment.When the operator without the special knowledge sets a monitoring rule,an inappropriate monitoring rule is likely to be set by which the usualsituation for the monitoring target environment can be determined as anabnormal condition.

Further, setting different monitoring rules for every monitoring targetenvironment is a complicated operation for the operator of themonitoring system. One of the devices for reducing man-hour in settingthe monitoring rule is an expansion of a monitoring rule. The expansionof a monitoring rule is to divert a conditional clause of the monitoringrule set for monitoring a certain environment to a conditional clause ofthe monitoring rule for monitoring another environment. However, whenthe operator of the monitoring system expands the monitoring rulewithout paying a special attention, an environment where aninappropriate monitoring rule may be set are likely to occur.

First Exemplary Embodiment

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an informationprocessing system 1000 according to a first exemplary embodiment. Asillustrated in FIG. 1, the information processing system 1000 accordingto the first exemplary embodiment includes a situation informationreceiving unit 110, a normal situation storage unit 210, a retrievalunit 120, and an output unit 130. The information processing system 1000is operated by an operator of a monitoring system, for example.

The situation information receiving unit 110 receives an input ofsituation information. The situation information is informationindicating a situation in a monitoring target environment. For example,the situation information is information indicating an action by aperson and the like in the monitoring target environment. The situationinformation may be information indicating a motion of a bicycle, amotorcycle, a car, and the like driven by a person in the monitoringtarget environment, for example. The situation information may beinformation indicating a number of people per unit area in themonitoring target environment, for example. The situation informationmay be represented by a co-occurrence expression such as “a person isholding something like a knife, and a person is shouting”, for example.

The normal situation storage unit 210 stores environment informationindicating the environment in association with a set of situationinformation indicating situations that are not abnormal in themonitoring target environment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of information stored by thenormal situation storage unit 210. As illustrated in FIG. 2, the normalsituation storage unit 210 stores environment information such as“soccer stadium” in association with a set of situation information suchas “a person is screaming loudly”, “a person is jumping”, and “a personis cheering”. At a soccer stadium, the situations such as “a person isscreaming loudly”, “a person is jumping”, and “a person is cheering” arethe usual situations but not at all abnormal situations.

In this way, the normal situation storage unit 210 stores theinformation in which the set of the situation information (“a person isscreaming loudly”, “a person is jumping”, and “a person is cheering”)indicating situations that are not abnormal in the monitoring targetenvironment (soccer stadium) is associated with the environmentinformation (soccer stadium) indicating the environment.

Going back to FIG. 1, the retrieval unit 120 refers to the normalsituation storage unit 210 to retrieve environment informationassociated with a set of situation information that does not include thesituation information received by the situation information receivingunit 110.

For example, the situation information receiving unit 110 receivessituation information such as “a person is holding something like aknife”. The retrieval unit 120 refers to the normal situation storageunit 210 illustrated in FIG. 2 to retrieve environment information suchas “soccer stadium”, “live concert”, and “airport” that are associatedwith a set of situation information which does not include the situationinformation such as “a person is holding something like a knife”.

For example, the situation information receiving unit 110 receives aninput of situation information expressed in a co-occurrence expressionsuch as “a person is shouting, and a person is jumping”. The retrievalunit 120 refers to the normal situation storage unit 210 illustrated inFIG. 2 to retrieve environment information that is associated with a setof situation information which includes neither the situationinformation such as “a person is shouting” nor the situation informationsuch as “a person is jumping”. That is, the retrieval unit 120 retrievesthe environment information such as “airport” and “kitchen”.

The output unit 130 outputs a list of the retrieved environmentinformation.

FIG. 3 is a diagram of a hardware configuration of the informationprocessing system 1000 illustrated in FIG. 1. As illustrated in FIG. 3,the information processing system 1000 includes a Central ProcessingUnit (CPU) 10, a storage device 20, and a communication interface 30.The information processing system 1000 may include an input device 40and an output device 50.

Functions of the information processing system 1000 are realized by theCPU 10 that executes a program read to the storage device 20, forexample. The communication performed by the information processingsystem 1000 is realized by an application program that controls thecommunication interface 30 by using a function provided by an OperatingSystem (OS), for example. The input device 40 is a keyboard, a mouse, ora touch panel, for example. The output device 50 is a display, forexample.

Note that the present invention exemplified by this exemplary embodimentand subsequent respective exemplary embodiments may be configured by anon-volatile storage medium 70 such as a compact disc and the like inwhich the program described above is stored. The program stored in thestorage medium 70 is read by a drive device 60, for example.

The information processing system 1000 may be configured such that twoor more physically separated devices are connected by wire orwirelessly.

Next, an operation of the information processing system 1000 illustratedin FIG. 1 will be described by using FIG. 4. FIG. 4 is a flowchartillustrating an example of the operation of the information processingsystem 1000.

The situation information receiving unit 110 receives an input ofsituation information (S101). The retrieval unit 120 refers to thenormal situation storage unit 210 and retrieves the environmentinformation associated with the set of the situation information thatdoes not include the situation information of which input is received(S102). The output unit 130 outputs the environment informationretrieved by the retrieval unit 120 (S103).

The effect taken by the information processing system 1000 according tothe first exemplary embodiment will be described.

By confirming the information output by the output unit 130, theoperator is able to recognize that the situation information received bythe situation information receiving unit 110 is appropriate as theinformation to be described in a conditional clause of a monitoring rulefor monitoring the environment indicated by the environment informationoutput by the output unit 130. For example, the operator is able torecognize that the situation information such as “a person is holdingsomething like a knife” is appropriate for the information to bedescribed in the conditional clause of the monitoring rule formonitoring “soccer stadium”, “live concert”, and “airport”.

It is assumed that the monitoring rule is expanded in order to reduceman-hour of the operator in setting the monitoring rule for a pluralityof environments. The information processing system 1000 according to thefirst exemplary embodiment is able to output a list of the monitoringtarget environments that can be expanded for the situation informationof which input is received. Therefore, when expanding the monitoringrule, the operator is not required to confirm, one by one, whether ornot the monitoring rule is expandable. This allows for a reduction ofman-hour of the operator in setting the monitoring rule to a pluralityof environments to be monitored.

As described above, the information processing system 1000 according tothe first exemplary embodiment can support the operator to set amonitoring rule in response to a monitoring target environment.

Note that the output unit 130 may output information in which theretrieved environment information is associated with the situationinformation of which input is received. Further, the output unit 130 mayadditionally output information indicating that the situation indicatedby the situation information of which input is received is the abnormalsituation in the environment indicated by the output environmentinformation. Such a configuration allows the information processingsystem 1000 to indicate more comprehensible information to the operator.That is, the information processing system 1000 can indicate moredirectly to the operator that the environmental information output bythe situation information of which input is received is appropriate forthe information to be described in the conditional clause of themonitoring rule.

Note that the information to be stored by the normal situation storageunit 210 may be generated manually or may be generated by theinformation processing system 1000. When manually generating theinformation to be stored in the normal situation storage unit 210, theoperator generates information in which usual actions or expressionsunder usual situations at a place or an event to be monitored areassociated with the place or the event. It is assumed that theinformation processing system 1000 generates the information stored inthe normal situation storage unit 210. In this case, the informationprocessing system 1000 may generate the information to be stored in thenormal situation storage unit 210 by extracting the situationinformation from texts such as blogs written about the place or theevent to be monitored. This is because illegal acts, manner breach acts,and the like are less likely to be written in blogs and the like.

When the information processing system 1000 arranges the informationstored in the normal situation storage unit 210, a technique forextracting a compound word of high appearance frequency may be utilized,as disclosed in Reference 1, for example.

REFERENCE 1

-   “Synonym Extraction Using Web Search Query and Click-through Logs”    by Kei Uchiumi and Mamoru Komachi, Transactions of Information    Processing Society of Japan, Database, Vol. 6 (No. 1), Pages 16-28,    Published on Jan. 23, 2013

The information processing system 1000 according to the first exemplaryembodiment outputs a list of the environments to be monitored that canbe expanded relative to the situation information of which input isreceived. However, the information processing system 1000 may output alist of the environments to be monitored which cannot be expandedrelative to the situation information of which input is received.

Note that the environment information is not limited to the informationindicating a place, an event, a time slot, or the like. For example,information such as “environment with little traffic”, “environmentwhose temperature is 25 degrees centigrade or higher and humidity is 80%or higher”, and so on can be the environment information. Theenvironment information may include actions by a person. For example,information such as “in the environment with a women having a bag”, “inthe environment where a silver car stops”, “when a child is checking theleft and right”, and so on can be the environment information.

The situation information may be an action taken by a person in theenvironment to be monitored. In this case, the situation information canbe rephrased by action information. The situation information receivingunit 110 receives an input of action information indicating an action bya person taken in the monitoring target environment. The normalsituation storage unit 210 stores the environment information indicatingthe environment in association with a set of action informationindicating actions that are not abnormal in the monitoring targetenvironment. The retrieval unit 120 refers to the normal situationstorage unit 210 and retrieves the environment information associatedwith the set of the action information that does not include the actioninformation of which input is received.

Second Exemplary Embodiment

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an informationprocessing system 2000 according to a second exemplary embodiment. Thesame reference numerals are provided to substantially the samecomponents as those illustrated in FIG. 1. As illustrated in FIG. 5, theinformation processing system 2000 according to the second exemplaryembodiment includes a second situation information receiving unit 140and a situation information extracting unit 150 in addition to theinformation processing system 1000 according to the first exemplaryembodiment.

The second situation information receiving unit 140 receives an input ofinformation including situation information. The information includingthe situation information may be text data representing naturalsentence, or may be image data, audio data, or video data, for example.

The situation information extracting unit 150 extracts the situationinformation from the information including the situation information.For example, it is assumed that the second situation informationreceiving unit 140 receives an input of the following text. “A fifthgrade boy student of this school found an adult holding something like aknife and shouting in a strange voice within 70 to 80 m behind him onthe way home after playing at a park. Because he thought he might beattacked, he rushed home by bicycle and reported it.” The situationinformation extracting unit 150 extracts the expressions representingthe situation of the monitoring target environment such as “an adult isholding something like a knife” and “an adult is shouting in a strangevoice” from the above text. The situation information extracting unit150 may extract a co-occurrence expression such as “an adult is holdingsomething like a knife, and the adult is shouting in a strange voice”.The situation information extracting unit 150 may extract a human actionin the monitoring target environment preferentially, for example.

The situation information extracting unit 150 may determine the entityof the action to utilize it for the extraction by using a methoddisclosed in Reference 2, for example.

REFERENCE 2

-   “Morpheme, Construction, and Case Analysis Using JUMAN/KNP”, by    Daisuke Kawahara, Sadao Kurohashi, Academic Center for Computing and    Media Studies, Kyoto University, Media Information Processing    Specialized Course, “Natural Language Processing Technique”, held on    Sep. 8 to Sep. 10, 2008

Next, an operation of the information processing system 2000 illustratedin FIG. 5 will be described by using FIG. 6. FIG. 6 is a flowchartillustrating the operation of the information processing system 2000.The same reference numerals are provided to substantially the sameoperations as those illustrated in the flowchart of FIG. 4.

The second situation information receiving unit 140 receives an input ofinformation including situation information (S201). The situationinformation extracting unit 150 extracts the situation information fromthe information including the situation information (S202). Thesituation information extracting unit 150 outputs the extractedsituation information to the situation information receiving unit 110(S203). Since the subsequent operations are the same as those by theinformation processing system 1000 according to the first exemplaryembodiment, description thereof will be omitted.

The information processing system 2000 according to the second exemplaryembodiment can support setting of a monitoring rule in response to amonitoring target environment.

Third Exemplary Embodiment

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an informationprocessing system 3000 according to a third exemplary embodiment. Thesame reference numerals are provided to substantially the samecomponents as those illustrated in FIG. 1. As illustrated in FIG. 7, theinformation processing system 3000 according to the third exemplaryembodiment includes an expression expansion unit 160 and a synonymstorage unit 220 in addition to the information processing system 1000according to the first exemplary embodiment.

In the synonym storage unit 220, different situation informationindicating the same or a similar situation is associated and stored forrespective situation information. For example, situation informationsuch as “a person is shouting loudly”, “a person is shrieking”, and “acrowd is screaming loudly” is associated with the situation informationsuch as “a person is shouting loudly” and stored.

The expression expansion unit 160 extracts, from the synonym storageunit 220, a synonym(s) for the situation information received by asituation information receiving unit 110.

Next, an operation of the information processing system 3000 illustratedin FIG. 7 will be described by using FIG. 8. FIG. 8 is a flowchartillustrating the operation of the information processing system 3000.The same reference numerals are provided to substantially the sameoperations as those illustrated in the flowchart of FIG. 4.

The situation information receiving unit 110 receives an input ofsituation information (S101). The expression expansion unit 160extracts, from the synonym storage unit 220, a synonym(s) for thesituation information received by the situation information receivingunit 110 (S301). The retrieval unit 120 retrieves environmentinformation associated with a set of situation information that includesneither the situation information received by the situation informationreceiving unit 110 nor the synonym extracted by the expression expansionunit 160 (S302). The output unit 130 outputs the environment informationretrieved by the retrieval unit 120 (S103).

The information processing system 3000 according to the third exemplaryembodiment can utilize the synonym extracted by the expression expansionunit 160 in addition to the situation information received by thesituation information receiving unit 110. Therefore, setting of amonitoring rule in response to a monitoring target environment can besupported with higher accuracy.

Fourth Exemplary Embodiment

FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an informationprocessing system 4000 according to a fourth exemplary embodiment. Asillustrated in FIG. 9, the information processing system 4000 accordingto the fourth exemplary embodiment includes a third situationinformation receiving unit 170, a verification unit 180, and a verifiedresult output unit 190.

The third situation information receiving unit 170 receives an input ofinformation in which situation information is associated withenvironment information. The operator inputs the information in whichsituation information is associated with environment information. Thesituation information is intended to be described as a conditionalclause of a monitoring rule for monitoring an environment indicated bythat environment information.

For example, it is assumed that the operator considers describing thesituation information such as “a person is screaming loudly” or “aperson is holding something like a knife” as a conditional clause of amonitoring rule for monitoring a kitchen. In this case, the operatorinputs, to the third situation information receiving unit 170,information in which the environment information as “kitchen” isassociated with the situation information as “a person is screamingloudly” (hereafter referred to as first information). Further, theoperator inputs, to the third situation information receiving unit 170,information in which the environment information as “kitchen” isassociated with the situation information as “a person is holdingsomething like a knife” (hereafter referred to as second information).

The verification unit 180 refers to a normal situation storage unit 210and compares a set of the situation information associated with theenvironment information included in the information of which input isreceived with the situation information included in the information ofwhich input is received. The verification unit 180 then verifies whetheror not there is matched situation information.

In the example of the first information described above, theverification unit 180 refers to the normal situation storage unit 210illustrated in FIG. 2. The verification unit 180 compares the set of thesituation information (a person is holding something like a knife)associated with the environment information (kitchen) included in thefirst information with the situation information (a person is screamingloudly) included in the first information. The verification unit 180verifies whether or not there is matched situation information. In theexample of the first information, there is no matched situationinformation.

In the example of the second information described above, theverification unit 180 refers to the normal situation storage unit 210illustrated in FIG. 2. The verification unit 180 compares the set of thesituation information (a person is holding something like a knife)associated with the environment information (kitchen) included in thefirst information with the situation information (a person is holdingsomething like a knife) included in the first information. Theverification unit 180 verifies whether or not there is matched situationinformation. In the example of the second information, there is matchedsituation information such as “a person is holding something like aknife”.

The verified result output unit 190 outputs a result of the verificationperformed by the verification unit 180.

Next, an operation of the information processing system 4000 illustratedin FIG. 9 will be described by using FIG. 10. FIG. 10 is a flowchartillustrating the operation of the information processing system 4000.

The third situation information receiving unit 170 receives an input ofthe information in which the situation information is associated withthe environment information (S401). The verification unit 180 refers tothe normal situation storage unit 210 to compare the set of thesituation information associated with the environment informationincluded in the information of which input is received with thesituation information included in the information of which input isreceived. The verification unit 180 verifies whether or not there issituation information matched each other (S402). The verified resultoutput unit 190 outputs the environment information retrieved by theverification unit 180 (S403).

The effect taken by the information processing system 4000 according tothe fourth exemplary embodiment will be described.

The information processing system 4000 according to the fourth exemplaryembodiment can determine whether or not the situation indicated by thesituation information of which input is received is an abnormalsituation in the environment indicated by the environment information ofwhich input is received.

The operator can verify whether or not the monitoring rule that theoperator intends to set is appropriate for monitoring a monitoringtarget environment by confirming the verified result output by theverified result output unit 190.

In the example described above, the operator can notice that it isinappropriate to describe the situation information such as “holdingsomething like a knife” as the conditional clause of the monitoring rulefor monitoring the kitchen.

In this way, the information processing system 4000 according to thefourth exemplary embodiment can support to verify as to whether or not amonitoring rule is appropriate.

While some aspects have been described hererinabove for implementing thepresent invention, the exemplary embodiments described above areintended to facilitate the understanding of the present invention andnot intended to limit the present invention in its interpretation. Thepresent invention may be modified and improved without departing fromits spirits, and the equivalents thereof are included in the presentinvention.

The present application claims priority to Japanese Patent ApplicationNo. 2013-090536 filed on Apr. 23, 2013, and the entire disclosure ofwhich is incorporated herein.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

According to the present invention, setting or verification of amonitoring rule in response to a monitoring target environment can besupported.

REFERENCE SIGNS LIST

-   -   10 CPU    -   20 storage device    -   30 communication interface    -   40 input device    -   50 output device    -   60 drive device    -   70 storage medium    -   110 situation information receiving unit    -   120 retrieval unit    -   130 output unit    -   140 second situation information receiving unit    -   150 situation information extracting unit    -   160 expression expansion unit    -   170 third situation information receiving unit    -   180 verification unit    -   190 verified result output unit    -   210 normal situation storage unit    -   220 synonym storage unit    -   1000 information processing system    -   2000 information processing system    -   3000 information processing system    -   4000 information processing system

The invention claimed is:
 1. An information processing systemcomprising: one or more memories storing instructions and environmentinformation indicating a monitoring target environment in associationwith a set of situation information indicating a situation that is notabnormal in the monitoring target environment; and one or moreprocessors configured to process the instructions to: receive an inputof situation information indicating a situation in a monitoring targetenvironment; in response to receiving the input of the situationinformation, retrieve, from the one or more memories, the environmentinformation associated with the set of the situation information thatdoes not include the input situation information; and output informationin which the input situation information is associated with theenvironment information retrieved.
 2. The information processing systemaccording to claim 1, wherein the situation information is representedby a co-occurrence expression.
 3. The information processing systemaccording to claim 1, wherein each of the situation informationcorresponds to the environment information including a specificlocation.
 4. An information processing method comprising: receiving aninput of situation information indicating a situation in a monitoringtarget environment; in response to receiving the input of the situationinformation, retrieving the environment information associated with theset of the situation information that does not include the inputsituation information from one or more memories storing environmentinformation indicating a monitoring target environment in associationwith a set of situation information indicating a situation that is notabnormal in the monitoring target environment; and outputtinginformation in which the input situation information is associated withthe environment information retrieved.
 5. The information processingmethod according to claim 4, wherein the situation information isrepresented by a co-occurrence expression.
 6. The information processingmethod according to claim 4, wherein each of the situation informationcorresponds to the environment information including a specificlocation.
 7. A non-transitory computer readable recording medium whichrecords a program, wherein the program causing a computer to execute:receiving an input of situation information indicating a situation in amonitoring target environment; in response to receiving the input of thesituation information, retrieving the environment information associatedwith the set of the situation information that does not include theinput situation information from one or more memories storingenvironment information indicating a monitoring target environment inassociation with a set of situation information indicating a situationthat is not abnormal in the monitoring target environment; andoutputting information in which the input situation information isassociated with the environment information retrieved.
 8. Theinformation processing method according to claim 7, wherein thesituation information is represented by a co-occurrence expression. 9.The information processing method according to claim 7, wherein each ofthe situation information corresponds to the environment informationincluding a specific location.